Doctoral Dissertation Research: Placing Federal District Courts in the Judicial Hierarchy

作为初审法院，联邦地区法院是联邦司法系统中诉讼当事人的第一个，也是在许多情况下唯一的正义面孔。然而，我们对这些重要法院的业务了解相当有限。鉴于其三篇论文的总和，本论文项目试图弥补这一不足，并挖掘出史无前例的证据，证明联邦地区法院在司法等级中的角色和地位。特别是，这项研究在统计上模拟了(1)上诉法院对地区法院结果的直接影响；(2)败诉的当事人--S从地区法院上诉到上诉法院的决定以及由此产生的基于该上诉的上诉结果；(3)联邦地区法院对案件的初始处理，特别关注主审案件的法官的性别和案件解决的可能性。为该项目收集的数据有望成为有关该主题的一些最全面的收集。通过收集和编码跨越多年、30个地区法院和许多问题领域的数千个案件摘要、意见和其他法庭文件，这些领域加起来约占联邦地区法院民事摘要的40%，这项研究改进了以前的研究，这些研究通常仅依赖于已发表或报告的意见、少量的地区法院和有限的问题领域。这些数据与法官和诉讼当事人的具体信息相结合，为法律的发展、当事人的战略、法官的管理作用以及中级上诉法院的影响提供了前所未有的见解。

As trial courts, federal district courts are the first, and in many cases the only, face of justice for litigants in the federal judicial system. And yet, our knowledge of the business of these important courts is quite limited.Viewed as the sum of its three essays, this dissertation project seeks to remedy this deficit and unearth an unprecedented degree of evidence on the role and place of federal district courts in the judicial hierarchy. In particular, this research statistically models (1) the direct impact that courts of appeals have on district court outcomes; (2) the losing litigant?s decision to appeal from district courts to courts of appeals and the resulting appellate outcome based on that appeal; and (3) the initial disposition of cases in federal district courts, with a specific focus on the sex of the judge presiding over the case and the likelihood of case settlement.The data collected for this project promise to be some of the most comprehensive ever amassed on the subject. By collecting and coding thousands of case dockets, opinions, and other court documents across multiple years, thirty district courts, and numerous issues areas that together account for about forty percent of federal district court civil dockets, this research improves on previous studies that generally rely on only published or reported opinions, a small number of district courts, and a limited set of issue areas. These data are combined with judge and litigant specific information, providing unprecedented insights into the development of law, the strategies of parties, the managerial role of judges, and the influence of intermediate appellate courts.